Changing Landscape

The game for raising money has changed. Learn to change with it.

How people raise money is changing. No longer does a visionary short on funds have to appeal to a small crowd. With the rise of crowd funding, angel investors/networks, & niche venture capitalists the landscape is wide open. It will only continue to get more decentralized with time. But having more options is only as valuable as the ability to identify wants & needs. A bigger, healthier grocery store will still lead to random trips down aisles & unwanted purchases if there is no understanding of needs beforehand. So, by having a better understanding of what motivates an investor & knowing how they think, an entrepreneur more easily can weed out cancerous money & connect with people that will help accelerate the venture’s growth.

After unsuccessfully raising a round of capital for a software venture, I was interested in learning how investors thought & what motivated them. So I went out in 2012 and interviewed around 30 early stage investors from some technology ‘start up’ business hot beds across the United States – Austin, New York, Boston, San Francisco, L.A., Seattle, Boulder, D.C., and some others. I interviewed each investor across 5 different themes:

How/Why they ended up early stage investing?

What made them pull the trigger on past investments?

Turnoffs/Redflags for a future investment?

Future trends that excite them?

Best ways to connect with them as an investor?

Patterns emerged from those questions. The patterns are outlined below. For each pattern below I have constructed a compilation of bite-sized interviews from the investors. Those bite-sized interviews can be found here. The linked content is constructed in the same way as the book Do-More-Faster, by the Tech Stars gurus Brad Feld & David Cohen. Each bite-sized interview is powerful in and of themselves but as a whole the interviews reflect patterns across each question above from differing perspectives.

Patterns from 30 investor interviews

Q1. Why early stage investing?

Reason 1: Concept of paying it forward

Reason 2: Broad & shallow > than narrow & focused.

Reason 3: Informational Advantage

Reason 4: Market Opportunity

Reason 5: Startup experiences were tapped

Reason 6: Enjoy being around entrepreneurs & startups

Q2. How did you end up in early stage investing?

A.) Historical entry points to venture capital

B.) Entry points

Successful exit

Fell into it

Fellow program

Family

Relevant path with proven success

Q3. Motivation for past investments?

Reason 1: Equation based investing says yes

Reason 2: A passionate entrepreneur

Reason 3: A trusted entrepreneur

Reason 4: Traction or customer growth path clear.

Reason 5: Intellectual property or ground breaking technology

Q4. Turnoffs or red flags in entrepreneurs/ventures?

Lack of empathy

No domain & tech expertise

No intro- cold call, email, etc.

Uncoachable

No minimum viable product

No bottom up market analysis

No intellectual property

Q5. Trends?

Ecommerce: “Time for change”

Education: “Flat world, blending learning, & ROI”

Software-as-a-service: “Reinventing distribution of the enterprise”

No Trends: “Entrepreneurs forecast the future”

Payments: “Painless, fast & easy”

Q6. Best practices for connecting with the investor?

Must be an introduction from a respected source

In person event meeting

Chapters/Patterns across themed questions

1. How/Why they ended up early stage investing?
2. What made them pull the trigger on past investments?
3. Turnoffs/Redflags for a future investment?
4. Future trends that excite them?
5. Best ways to connect with them as an investor?